Category Archives: LEGO

You’d probably expect a lot of the posts on a LEGO website like The Brothers Brick to be about LEGO, and you’d be right. If you’re browsing this page, you might want to consider narrowing what you’re looking for by checking out categories like “Space” and “Castle.” We’re sure there’s something here that’ll fascinate and amaze you.

Take flight with this stunning Cormorant

Nature photographer and bird-building extraordinaire Bram (skabram.builds) recently re-worked an older creation and shared this absolutely stunning Cormorant build! Bram is no stranger to incredible bird builds and has a unique ability to capture their likeness in brick form, but this is the largest creation we’ve seen from him yet and makes for a striking display piece. The head rotates, the wings are flexible via the use of various ball-joints, and there’s an alternate display in which the bird’s wings are tucked in. Our favorite view is the imposing wingspan side profile below, but this build is a sight to behold no matter which angle you view it from.

Fly on in and check out some alternate views of the Cormorant!

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

“And I thought they smelled bad before the race!”

Everyone knows Tauntauns are the Star Wars universe’s most adorable arctic ride/sleeping bag. But did you know they make great racing beasts, too? Will (@montivalbricks) leaves icy Hoth to assemble a sorrel Tauntaun gelding, tacked up and ready for the derby. The builder does a phenomenal job capturing the tauntaun’s features from small elements. A roller skate nose offers perfect nostrils, and minifig hands kick off as toes.

Will created this impressive racing beast for the Star Wars Factions RPG, a LEGO storytelling universe where builders can compete in challenges tied to a shared story world. That means we get plenty of lore to accompany the build, so we know that the mount is named Dicastery and that the jockey is Tur C’otte, a NeuroSaav employee. Will’s excellent build won first prize in the Canto-Key Derby. Congratulations to Dicastery and his builder both!

These wearable builds are a crowning achievement in LEGO

It’s easy for minifigures to get dressed in their LEGO finest, but for humans looking to wear their hobby on their sleeves, one has to get creative, as outside of rings and wristbands (and Nike collabs), LEGO hasn’t provided many official offerings for the brick-built wardrobe. Finnish artist Heidi Aulikki Puumalainen is one of a small but growing number of builders focused on wearable builds, like this jewel-encrusted crown that is both elegant and sturdy enough to wear dancing.

Heidi’s headwear first shone on LEGO Masters Finland where she partnered with Satu Aaltonen, whose work is currently on display in LEGO House’s Masterpiece Gallery. For this bridal-themed headpiece, Heidi led the build while Satu wore it down the runway. I love how elegant the trans-yellow chains become when draping from a floral crown.

See more of Heidi’s wearable creations below

Come sail away on the Marlin Zeppelin of your dreams

The Marlin Zeppelin comes in as Piotr Przytuła’s last LEGO build of 2025, and with it, he looks to the future. You may recall this world within a jellyfish from last November, so if that and this new marlin are any indicator, 2026 should shape up to be a wondrous, dream-filled year for Piotr. The pink fins of this animal would look regal against any sky while transporting its cargo through dreamscapes. It conjures up the kind of imaginary world I’d love to live in for a while, even if unknown perils lie ahead. We’ll wait with baited breath to see what adventures he’ll take us on in the new year.

This Ghibli minifigs are more than they’re stacked up to be

LEGO Masters Germany winner Alex (Brix Tales) has quickly become one of my favorite habitat builders. This quartet of tributes to Miyazaki films epitomizes why, with their dynamic shapes that eschew convention and a bold use of color.

Princess Mononoke (newly restored in 4K – go see it!) is uses only foliage to house minifig hero San, who makes perfect use of this Ninjago headpiece to evoke the character’s forest mask. Using ghost faces as Kodoma is a brilliant choice, and I always appreciate a green sprue used for a vine.

See close-ups of the other scenes after the break

The Brothers Brick LEGO Builder of the Year 2025 [News]

So 2025 has been and gone, the dust has settled from the New Year’s celebrations, and the last of the champagne has just about left our systems. But we have one final bit of business to attend to from last year: the coronation of the Brothers Brick’s LEGO Builder of the Year! As a reminder, our shortlist is over here. And man, what a stacked list! How do we pick out a winner from that? Well, our builders of the year tend to cover a lot of bases, and often their achievements extend beyond merely making great LEGO models. Ultimately, it’s about consistency across the whole year.

And the key to determining this year’s Builder of the Year actually came while curating our Creations of the Year shortlist, as our victor had several builds that could’ve made the cut for the shortlist alone. The Brothers Brick are delighted to crown Seigo Aoki, who builds under the handle DeRa, as our Builder of the Year 2025!

Click here for a retrospective on DeRa’s terrific 2025!

Super Retro Robo Force; King Oberon!

This new LEGO retro robot from Shannon Sproule fills me with joy as I remember childhood cartoons. He takes us to a time when, thanks to relaxed regulations, every cartoon was a 30 minute advertisement for some toy or another. Us kids in the 70’s and 80’s were brainwashed consumer minions and we liked it, by golly! Some deep diving into Diaclone stuff has Shannon in the mood to build some blocky mega robots in all their primary-colored glory. We’re here for it, Shannon! King Oberon here triggers some happy memories of imported Japanese cartoons like Battle of the Planets or G-Force: Guardians of Space fill the ol’ reptile brain. Who cares if the plots didn’t make any sense. So what if the titles were kinda clunky and ill-translated. So long as parents had jobs and there were birthdays and Christmas, we were getting some cool giant robot toys.

Talmudic Academy in LEGO celebrates stained glass and tradition

With the exception of Notre Dame, LEGO has shied away from depicting places of worship in official sets, leaving AFOLs to provide religious buildings for minifig believers. Church mocs are quite common, as evidenced by our extensive archive, and lately we’ve been seeing a lot more mosques as well, but synagogues are rarely seen in brick. Builder Matthew Sklar provides a rare look inside a LEGO synagogue from the medieval era, based on the Talmudic Academies of circa 10th Century Babylonia. The Torah ark, framed in blue tiles, is beautifully constructed, but it’s the stained glass windows that shine brightest – fitting as Matthew created this model for the Colossal Castle competition’s stained glass category, as well as Brickscalibur’s Arabian Knights theme.

LEGO unveils Smart Play system – LEGO bricks and minifigs that play back [News]

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) isn’t the usual venue for LEGO to break big news – techies love displaying LEGO, but the bricks themselves aren’t your typical cutting-edge gadgets. That’s about to change with the announcement of the Smart Play system. Smart Bricks communicate with Smart Minifigures and Smart Tags that integrate sensors and spatial awareness into your builds, thanks to microchips smaller than a single stud. You can read about LEGO’s design process for the Smart Brick here.

As rumored, the new system debuts with the Star Wars theme with three all-in-one sets coming this March. Each of these will include a Smart Brick, charger, and at least one Smart Minifigure and Yag. The all-in-one sets include: 75421 Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter (69,99 EUR / 69,99 USD / 59,99 GBP), 75423 Luke’s Red Five X-wing (89,99 EUR / 99,99 USD / 79,99 GBP), and 75427 Throne Room Duel & A-wing (159,99 EUR / 159,99 USD / 139,99 GBP). Presumably other sets will expand the Minifigure and Tag range but wouldn’t include a charging station.

LEGO has, of course, experimented with ways for bricks and circuits to talk to each other before. Mindstorms empowered curious builders to experiment with robotics and programming as early as 1998. The Dimensions toys-to-life video game platform let gamers scan physical toys to activate the models in-game. Vidyo and Hidden World sets played with augmented reality apps. Most recently, the Super Mario line uses a smart figure and sensors to let players assemble courses, collect coins, and playback sounds and expressions.

As the sensors in Smart Play are smaller and more powerful, they seem primed to make it easier for kids to integrate sound effects, music, lights, and game behaviors into physical sets that are much closer to your typical LEGO models. Just how robust those behaviors are, we’ll have to see. Right now it looks like the primary focus here is on imaginative, physical play rather than the more STEM focused initiatives like Mindstorms and Spike. I’m very curious to see how adult LEGO fans integrate these new functions into creations.

LEGO’s press release follows

The hottest Dino in the Galaxy

Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 recently arrived on the Nintendo Switch, and Sakiya Watanabe (N.A.B.E_mocs) has already marked the occasion with a new build featuring one of our favorite enemies from these games. The Dino Piranha is a piranha plant variation that resembles Petey Piranha (first introduced in Super Mario Sunshine), but the difference is that these guys hatch from eggs and have dinosaur features – because of course they do. The Super Mario Galaxy games were revolutionary for the franchise and took every enemy, world, and gameplay element to the next level, and Sakiya has done the same with this build.

The 2×2 round brick tube (part 65473) has proven to be the most essential piece for Super Mario builds, and is predominantly featured on sets like The Mighty Bowser, the Spiny Shell, and the Piranha Plant. Sakiya used the same part here in different colors to capture the mouth and tail of the Dino Piranha, which looks right at home next to the official sets. We especially appreciate the use of some newer leaf molds on the Fiery Dino Piranha to round out their scorching hot ‘mane’.

Sakiya also shared an alternate color of this build to represent the base Dino Piranha that is first encountered in the Good Egg Galaxy. The Mario galaxy crystal resembling a LEGO rock 1×1 crystal in both builds is such an excellent touch.

The Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2025 [News]

Woah, wait a minute! We’re already nearly a week into 2026? How did that happen? While we figure that out where those days went, it’s about time we announced the winner of our annual Creation of the Year prize. This year’s shortlist was one of the toughest to judge in the ten years we’ve been doing so. A baker’s dozen of incredible builds, from creators new and known to us alike, across a wide range of media and subject matter. And indeed, it’s a new builder who’s taking the crown this year! Despite only starting to share their builds in 2025, they quickly established themselves as something of a castle specialist. Which makes sense – they are known as cathedralofbricks, after all!

And the cream of the crop for us was this superbly furnished Moroccan palace. So congratulations to Luke (cathedralofbricks) and his Delights of Marrakech build, which we are declaring the Brothers Brick’s LEGO Creation of the Year 2025!

Click here for a reminder of what made this Moroccan marvel so magnificent!

The Ice Planet droids are bringing the heat

The holidays are behind us. Which means no more songs about the beauty of snow or the joy of cold weather. Now it’s just dealing with the harsh reality of winter as we try and survive the frost until spring arrives. With that in mind, we suggest you get yourself some Ice Planet droids, like this crew from Devid VII. They can shovel the walk with ease. At least, I assume they can. I mean, they’re built for keeping space explorers safe on a frigid planet, so your sidewalk should be a piece of cake.